I have a somewhat frustrating dilema & I hope someone can help me resolve it.
For the past 10 years or so I have been a distro hopper. I have rarely stuck with any single distro for more than 3 months. I have literally used hundreds of distros over the years. My current distro, Manjaro, is actually the one I have used for the longest ever: just over 1 year.
Up to now I have had 2 different computers, a desktop & laptop, so if one was down for a time, it was not a huge deal. But I have decided to consolidate & now I have just my laptop. I use my computer for business 10-12 hours a day. So it is essential that my computer never be down for more than an hour or so.
So I am now trying to choose a long-term distro. It has to be stable & everything has to just work. I love Manjaro & it is pretty stable so I have considered keeping it. But as a rolling release it does have it's occasional hiccups. The primary hangup tends to be audio, which for me is essential because of my podcast production. Plus, although rare, I have found a few applications that either simply will not install on Manjaro or will not run properly.
I do not like Ubuntu. I do however like some of its derivatives including ZorinOS, Ultimate Edition, & Mint.
I also like PCLinuxOS full monty edition.
I would prefer a rolling release, but as I said, stability is an absolute must have.
So I have narrowed it down to 5 possibilities:
Manjaro, ZorinOS Ultimate, PCLinuxOS, OZUnity, & Antergos.
All I am asking for here is personal thoughts & opinions. Looking at all of the above, what do you think would be my best option.
I am not a Linux Noob. I am LPIC level 2 certified. I know my way around a Linux system. I am looking at the advantages & disadvantages of every distro I am considering. So what are your thoughts?

Not being familiar or using Arch spinoffs or Vanilla Arch. I am not qualified to say anything about them. I tried PCLOS mini in the past but it would not boot on my gear. Zorin I never tried. Closest I came with was ZevenOS when it first came out.

SolydXK based on Debian has a Business Debian stable edition and a Rolling release version also. I use the Xfce 32bit bit version on one of my atom netbooks. It works just fine and does what I need on that netbook. Only KDE and XFCE versions Of SolydXK.

I am posting from

My Desktop

It also does what I want but it is not rolling like your Arch or my SolydX and AntiX installs are
and I will probably save and reinstall when EOL hits, though maybe a command line upgrade, (I don't really know yet),
through terminal to a LTS version may be possible by then. Though I doubt it since Ubuntu 14 release is April 10 with final release on April 17 and my EOL is on April 14. Kinda close.

Best options are sometimes hardware related and how software integrates with said hard ware. Right now I am waiting for a CPU fan
to arrive for my old 2 core AMD Shuttle Box with Nvidia Gforce 7 series card with a 2 TB hard drive. The plan is for AntiX 64bit
to go on that one. I am gonna run Sid repos on it with experimental iceweasel repo also. I have a dumpster emachine found in a Alley that still runs the same install from way back when http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...1/#post5084749

The thing I like about about Mint with Ubuntu repos is all the spinoff ppa's like http://www.noobslab.com/2013/06/ff-m...or-ubuntu.html so I guess it is kinda hard to talk with you on what is best for you because of your software needs
and your hardware specs are missing from your original post. I am a home user with 2 motorcycle shop Desktops and a few Laptops. Not A business user like you.

I kinda always liked craigevils signature

Good luck with what ever you decide to go with. Happy Trails, Rok

how about debian stable?

i am using arch linux and once it is set up, i don't find it unstable. i have disabled the testing repos at some point and had to downgrade a whole bunch of packages, which went totally smoothly (i feared i'm gonna break it).

looking at your audio setup, maybe AVLinux is of interest to you.
it is quite different from normal linux distros as it's not meant to be updated at all! they have a lightweight desktop and a whole lot of applications that you would normally never see togehter on one distro.
so again, once you have it set up, total stability.

blah

Thanks for the replies so far. I have looked at SolydX & it is nice, but I find it slow in comparison to Arch or even Manjaro (at least on my hardware). I used Arch for a few months about a year ago & I LOVE it's speed & versatility. While I did find it surprisingly stable for a true rolling release, I did have one point after updating where my system became unbootable. I was able to get it going again but it took me al ost 4 hours of researching forums, and tinkering to get it going. Yes, such breakages are somewhat rare, but they do happen.
PCLos is good, which is why its on my list. AVLinux I have tried. But it is a little to specialized for me.

generally, slowness is much more about the desktop environment than the distro itself.

I think PCLinux would be a good choice for what you want. I admit a little bias as I've been using it for four years. I've tried numerous other distributions but keep coming back to PCLinux. The only other distro you mention I am familiar with is Zorin which I've tried but not used for any length of time. If you use Zorin, make sure you check the LTS support. I believe 6.4 is based on Ubuntu 12.04 so it will have longer term support. Not familiar with the other distros you mention.

Slackware takes more time to set up, but once you get past that, it's the most trouble-free distro you'll ever use.

I don't know OZUnity, but of your other candidates I'd recommend PCLinuxOS. ZorinOS is very much one man's product. Manjaro and Antergos are both prone to odd bugs, as you can see from their forums. But PCLOS has a good team and has always seemed reliable when I've tested it: I gave the last version 9/10 and I don't often do that.

From the list you provided, I'd recommend PcLinux although I'd go with the Minime version and ad whatever software I needed after installation rather than the Full Monty version.

The rolling release model, for me, is one of its best features. I've been using PcLinux since 2007 and have only had to reinstall twice, once when the update to Kde4 from Kde3 broke my system and again last year when a toolchain update left my system unbootable. Seems none of the devs considered that anyone would be using a kernel as old as I was, turned out a lot of us were.
Even with that last I managed to recover my system by chrooting from a live cd and installing a modern kernel, but went ahead and did a reinstall anyway as that installation was from 2009.
All in all a rolling release model works well for stability as long as the distro using it doesn't try and be too "cutting edge".

You said the distro must be stable and everything just works. You said you know your way around Linux. You should therefore consider Slackware.

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I have heard Slackware a few times. Seems to be Slackware & PCLOS are the most highly recomended. Not sure why, but I have never tried Slackware. Kind of odd since I have tried so many. But I will give it a look!
Zorin by the way is not a "one man product". It is very popular & has a successful company behind it. That being said, I am removing it from my list. I think it is too much a beginner distro for my tastes. It is an awesome distro for the noob though!

Slackware is the only distro I can think of that has no forum of its own, so they all come here! For quality, I can't fault it, but the DVD is the whole thing — the complete repository! It's true that the Slackbuilds system makes compiling and installing programs easier, but I draw a line at a distro that doesn't come with a professional-quality office suite or accounting software, or a host of other things.

They all come here and recommend Slackware...

I'd just put Manjaro on it, your used to it, it takes the bleeding edge off of Arch, and is rolling.

+1

I don't even use Manjaro, but this might be the best thought so far.